How forex trading compare to stocks/shares

Hi all,

I was wondering how trading forexes compares to trading in stocks and shares in terms of complexity.

Does the fact that you are only dealing with a handful of currencies rather than potentially hundreds of stocks and shares mean that it can be less complex?

Iotrez said:

Hi all,

I was wondering how trading forexes compares to trading in stocks and shares in terms of complexity.

Does the fact that you are only dealing with a handful of currencies rather than potentially hundreds of stocks and shares mean that it can be less complex?

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But on the other hand when ur dealing with stocks u have to ask ur self: is this stock going up or down?

When ur dealing with forex u must ask: How will the USD do compered to the JPY as an example. That makes it more complex since u must look at to instruments at the same time.

I would call it both simpler and more complex. It's simpler because there's less to it in terms of instruments and few layers of fundamentals, plus less technical data available. It's more complex because forex is about relationships - those between two economies on a fundamental basis. Plus, because there are two currencies in each position, there's increased complexity when dealing with multiple positions.

Add to all this the fact that forex is an almost exclusively leverage based market and you get something that can be very complicated for a newcomer. The leverage thing alone gives people fits.